Iosi Havilio - Paradises

I sink down to my neck, my eyes mist over, the birds become a muddle. Now I completely submerge myself and hold my breath listening to the thousand gastric noises from the pipework. I come up to the surface and start mildly, without shock, but enough to cause a spillage, when I see Benito holding the door handle, observing me from his broad height. Naturally, without meaning to, I cover my tits with my forearm. But he doesn’t turn a hair, he hasn’t come for that, to look at me, or else he has, but he’s hiding it well. He shows me a long metal screw and a rag, rust-stained like his hands. He says: Am I bothering you? I say: I’m just getting out. No, he says, rotating his massive head and I wonder how it must feel when he moves, this deformed deity. We stay like that for a couple of minutes, him, rubbing the screw, me, submerged, gradually forgetting about his presence. Benito doesn’t throw himself at me, nor does he unbutton his trousers to show me his cock, nor does he say goodbye when he leaves. As inoffensive as he is enormous.

Alone again, the steam, the drowsiness, the smell of soap in the air, the bubbles I produce by blowing underwater, bring me the best of childhood.

I’ll give you,

I’ll give you, pretty girl,

I’ll give you something

Something beginning with …

Party at Axel’s house. I allow myself to be persuaded, partly by the many messages and partly by my slight boredom. I arrive early, for the preparations. At the entrance I’m welcomed by a Martian and I realise I should have come in fancy dress. Eloísa didn’t mention it, but it’s too late for me to change my mind. There aren’t many people yet, Axel’s best friends, the intimate circle, Andy and Berni, both dressed as transvestites, I’m going to get them mixed up all night; Débora, with studs and a red mohawk, a punk; Cyntia, her best friend, a galactic girl. Eloísa is an urban Indian, her head adorned with fluorescent feathers. Axel is dressed as a rabbi: long artificial beard, jacket and black trousers, Mexican-style hat and a white silk shirt, which as the hours pass will become stuck to his skin with sweat.

Because I’m in civvies, T-shirt, jeans and sandals, Eloísa gesticulates when she sees me, laughing hard. Her laughter is the wrong way round, at seeing me without a costume, the opposite of the rest. Come on, she says, we fix ourselves a Fernet and she leads me outside. I didn’t know, I say as we cross the garden, illuminated by torches and candles floating in the pool. Eloísa, who is already quite drunk, laughs again enthusiastically. I do too, infected. In her room there’s a load of clothes, shoes and accessories piled on the mattress. Discarded costumes that have been left there for situations like this. After rummaging for a while, she makes a decision. I let her dress me in a skirt with Islamic swirls, a sequinned bodice and a belt with medallions hanging from it. And a piece of tulle to cover half my face. That’s you, she says. Now we need make-up. Otherwise you’ll look sod-all like an odalisque.

As she paints my eyes and lips and applies blusher, I crumble a lump of marijuana, separating the stems and seeds. The swift movement of my fingers over my cupped hand produces an annoying, delicious tingling. We smoke as she does my hair. Eloísa takes two steps back to look at me properly, she exhales and releases a guffaw mingled with a cough. You’re a right whore, she says proudly.

We lie down on the floor with our legs bent. Iris comes to my mind; we lay like this in the grass under the shade of the ceibo tree before the kiss that never was. Some of them are pretty much freaks, Eloísa is telling me. But I get on well with them. I look around and realise she’s made some changes to the room, even though it takes me a few minutes to pinpoint what they are. She’s put up a poster, a monkey dressed as a train driver mounted on a multicoloured elephant: The Magical Circus.

We go back to the party. My head feels hot. In the short time we were shut away, a lot of people have clearly arrived all at once. We lost track of time, says Eloísa. Now there are groups of boys and girls in the garden, most of them in costume. Two devils, more transvestites, a rocker, a mermaid, the usual nuns, priests, police officers, a skeleton and some less common disguises: a cardboard woman, a dice man and a dog girl with a leash around her neck who asks to be taken for a walk. Others, rebels, or unaware like me, have come as themselves. The joint hits me hard. All this lucidity is driving me crazy.

We enter the house and Eloísa lets go of my hand. Be right back, she says, ushering me towards the living room and she exits through a door. Illuminated with intermittent spotlights, a mirror ball and the distorted lights that mask the floor, the space seems like somewhere else, very different to the room I saw a few weeks ago. The dining table is perpendicular to the wall and serving as a bar. Instead of the photo frames and menorahs there is a long row of cups and glasses, a dish with cherries and another with prawns. I try a prawn, it’s tasteless. And the first thing I notice: the urn with Axel’s granddad’s ashes is no longer there. They must have put it somewhere safe from a potential breakage. Seeing me dressed like this, Axel throws me a Wooowww that invites a few glances and he offers me a red drink. Daiqui, he says with a twisted smile. I accept so that he won’t insist.

More and more guests are arriving without costumes. I don’t think anyone would notice if I changed back into my own clothes. Eloísa appears holding a guy by the arm, half prisoner half thief, stripy suit, a cap on his head, beard painted on with burnt cork. She introduces him like this: Marito, a genius. Later I find out that he’s in charge of the warehouse for the jeweller’s, that he was the family’s driver for a while and that he’s like a brother to Axel. Just like in the country: Jaime used to have Boca whenever he had a barbecue, that half friend half employee, half compadre half foreman, who worked for him but who also shared the table. Marito has very dark, frizzy hair and dun-coloured eyes. He seems, just like Boca, to be a good man, trustworthy.

Back in the garden, Eloísa rolls a fresh joint, we sit on the grass and the aroma is a magnet. We are joined by a girl dressed as a castaway: long face, bowl cut, tits like watermelons. Leyla is a designer like Débora, they met at university. She makes clothes, prints, what she’s wearing for example, blue leggings with dragons and flames. She laughs hard, just like Eloísa, mocking some of the people who pass near us, especially the cardboard girl. Honestly quite ridiculous. The chat takes us anywhere, chignons, pancakes, potted orchids and horoscopes. Leyla is a horoscope aficionado, she’s done several courses, she knows how to read tarot, runes, the I Ching. She asks my sign. Virgo, I think, I say not joking, and the two of them laugh in chorus. And ascendant? I shake my head, no idea. What time were you born? At dawn, I throw out to satisfy her. So you must have an ascendant in Gemini, she ventures. You’re a bit stubborn, are you?

Clapping and whistling reaches us from the house. We draw closer. In the centre of the dance floor, Axel is brandishing a microphone. He thanks everyone for coming, he says he loves us and forgives us. You know I love you all. And he adds a few words in Hebrew, or fake Hebrew, that sound like a sermon. I’m going to sing you one of my favourite songs, he says and signals to the DJ, a guy with greying hair and a baby face. A classic, he explains and forces his already hoarse voice. The song is in English, almost everyone knows it apart from me. He makes an impressive sight, veins just under his skin, eyes out of orbit, deranged. About to cry, crying, Axel trembles as if he’s about to break into pieces. The ovation will be interminable, a competition to see who can shout loudest, who can come up with the most ingenious comment. Gay-boy rabbi, Berni or Andy shouts at him.